The Chicago

Photo © spudart via Flickr.

Mayor Daley and a small entourage from the Chicago 2016 organizing committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee are traveling to Olympic headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, to make a final sales pitch before as many as 90 of the 100 members of the International Olympic Committee -- the governing body that plans to announce Oct. 2 which city gets the Games.

Among the finalist cities, Chicago is the only one that hasn't offered a blanket guarantee against potential Olympic losses. It has been 25 years since the IOC has awarded the Olympics to a city whose bid did not include a blanket guarantee...though outgoing USOC chief Peter Ueberroth praised Chicago last week as "the leader," and the widely read Olympics-watching Web site Around The Rings ranked Chicago first.